What do the guidelines recommend?

The guidelines are organized around seven interrelated core elements. For each element, OSHA provides action items and suggestions for how to accomplish it.

The 7 Core Elements

Action Items

Management leadership

Communicate your commitment to a safety and health program

Define program goals

Allocate resources

Expect performance

Worker participation

Encourage workers to participate in the program

Encourage workers to report safety and health concerns

Give workers access to safety and health information

Involve workers in all aspects of the program

Remove barriers to participation

Hazard identification and assessment

Collect existing information about workplace hazards

Inspect the workplace for safety hazards

Identify health hazards

Conduct incident investigations

Identify hazards associated with emergency and nonroutine situations

Characterize the nature of identified hazards, identify interim control measures, and prioritize the hazards for control

Hazard prevention and control

Identify control options

Select controls

Develop and update a hazard control plan

Select controls to protect workers during nonroutine operations and emergencies

Implement selected controls in the workplace

Follow up to confirm that controls are effective

Education and training

Provide program awareness training

Train employers, managers, and supervisors on their roles in the program

Train workers on their specific roles in the safety and health program

Train workers on hazard identification and controls

Program evaluation and improvement

Monitor performance and progress

Verify that the program is implemented and is operating

Correct program shortcomings and identify opportunities to improve

Communication and coordination for host employers, contractors, and staffing agencies

Establish effective communication

Establish effective coordination

What does this have to do with housekeeping?

While the guidelines and action items are broad, many of the specific ways to accomplish the action items have to do with housekeeping, especially the sections on hazard identification, assessment, prevention, and control.

Hazard identification and assessment

OSHA states that housekeeping hazards “can and should be fixed as they are found.”

The agency recommends using checklists to identify typical safety hazards in common categories, including general housekeeping and fire protection.

Hazard prevention and control

Once you’ve identified the hazards present in your facility, you can control them. OSHA recommends selecting controls according to a hierarchy that puts engineering solutions at the top and personal protective equipment (PPE) at the bottom.

The guidelines also advise avoiding controls that may introduce new hazards, either directly or indirectly. One example they give is “exhausting contaminated air into occupied work spaces.” A vacuum cleaner with multi-stage filtration — including a downstream filter that keeps contaminants in, rather than exhausting them back out again — can help you accomplish this goal.

___________________________________

OSHA’s Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs aren’t mandatory and you can’t be cited for not implementing them. But by putting these practices in place, you can protect yourself from the serious fines associated with safety violations. In addition, the agency’s assistant secretary of labor David Michaels said that “employers who [show] a good-faith effort could receive a reduction in penalties.”

Nilfisk Industrial Vacuums play a critical role in thousands of manufacturing facilities and industrial processes across North America. Supported by a direct sales force and an extensive dealer network, Nilfisk helps customers solve a variety of cleaning challenges.